The video material of Acorn was filmed while on a family holiday. My brother and his son were playing on the beach, so deeply in the state of immersion that when I picked up the camera, they continued whatever they were doing introducing but a slight awareness of the camera and a bit of role play.
Along with round fifteen all sound, made later that year, Acorn laid the foundation for a new direction in my practice, focusing on performativity between staged and documentary film, and the possibilities of editing and narrative within them. I became increasingly interested in how perception of reality changes with age, and how families and relationships function as scenes where relational dynamics, unfold and can be observed.
On the subject level, Acorn can be seen as a relationship study of a child and their parent, enacting the dynamic of the reality principle—a negotiation between primal instinct and external reality. The four-year-old Ažuolas engages with the environment on the beach and explores associations between language and objects. He collects a bag full of acorns because his name means oak in Lithuanian and negotiates his boundless drive to play with the limitations introduced by his father. The scene takes place on the beach in the country of his father's heritage, which he is visiting for the first time.
On the subject level, Acorn can be seen as a relationship study of a child and their parent, enacting the dynamic of the reality principle—a negotiation between primal instinct and external reality. The four-year-old Ažuolas engages with the environment on the beach and explores associations between language and objects. He collects a bag full of acorns because his name means oak in Lithuanian and negotiates his boundless drive to play with the limitations introduced by his father. The scene takes place on the beach in the country of his father's heritage, which he is visiting for the first time.